The debate
Wolf Blitzer lost last evening’s debate. Mike Huckabee won.
After Mr. Blitzer, the next loser was Mitt Romney, who was way off his game. A questioner from the live debate audience asked Mr. Romney to defend his Spanish-language campaign website. Mr. Romney replied that he loved legal immigration and hoped that legal immigrants would vote for him, then wandered off on some non sequitur. Bad answer. This writer will still probably vote for Mr. Romney when the primaries reach his state, but believes that Mr. Romney richly deserves to lose native votes for pandering in foreign languages to immigrants who won’t follow the campaign in English. When Mr. Romney runs for el presidente de Mexico, then will he rightly campain in Spanish. Until then, bad move, Mr. Romney.
Mr. Huckabee’s answer on creation and evolution was probably the most moving expression I have heard on the topic outside a religious setting. Outstanding. All his answers were very good. I found no flaw yesterday in Mr. Huckabee consequential enough to merit mention here. Mr. Huckabee is surprisingly impressive, all around. He has a long, long way to go, but surely he is rising.
Following Mr. Huckabee, the next winner was John McCain. After the (understandably) nervous Duncan Hunter and the (inexplicably) incoherent Sam Brownback both had fumbled a question from a woman who had lost her brother in military service in Iraq, Mr. McCain stood and spoke, as he always does, from the heart. Mr. McCain’s fundamental strengths lie in his evident courage, charity and sincerity, qualities he appears to enjoy in abundance. His absolutely fatal flaw remains, irredeemably, in his deep lack of judgment. This debate, as earlier debates, displayed both Mr. McCain’s strengths and his weaknesses, but much more his strengths.
Rudy Giuliani talked too much, positively to the point of rudeness. Gentility however has never been thought one of Mr. Giuliani’s qualities, and otherwise he performed engagingly and well. (I still do not like him, but I can recognize a good performance when I see it.)
Unlike his ideological comrade Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo debated in top form last night. Is top Tancredo form enough? Regrettably one doubts that it is, but if you like Mr. Tancredo as I do, then you loved his performance last night. If you don’t like him, then at least you now know exactly where the man stands. Americans will recognize that today’s immigrants have finally been assimilated, he explained, when the day comes that you no longer pick up the phone and press 1 for English, 2 for some other language. George W. Bush once told him not to darken the door of the White House; he would tell Mr. Bush the same. Well done. Very well done, indeed.
Ron Paul was simply Ron Paul. Not only did he yet again set himself well apart from the other candidates by his principled positions, but he raised several good points which the other candidates simply ignored. Unworthy moderator, journalist-poseur, and anti-Republican political hack Wolf Blitzer repeatedly lobbed Mr. Paul softballs, egging Mr. Paul on to try to embarrass the other Republican candidates, but Mr. Paul disregarded Wolf’s clumsy machinations to stay firmly on message. Mr. Paul shall not have my vote, because he is an ideologue and a libertarian whereas I am neither, but he does deserve the acknowledgment and thanks of every Republican for lifting the debate to a higher plane.
I seem to be almost the lone conservative blogger who likes Tommy Thompson and feels that he performs consistently well. There’s no accounting for taste, I guess. I like the man, and suspect that he would make a pretty good president.
Did I miss anybody? Reviewing the list, yes: Jim Gilmore. Sorry, forgot about him. He did okay last night, I guess. He looks like an acceptable candidate for county commission, like a homeowner you wouldn’t mind sharing a back fence with, even like a dad whose son you’d consider letting take your daughter out on a date. How Mr. Gilmore has risen to run for the presidency, I do not quite understand, but nowhere is it ordained that I shall understand all such things. I am afraid that I don’t have much more to write about Mr. Gilmore.
It tempts any political commentator to imagine what he would do, were he a candidate at the debate. My own fantasy is that Wolf Blitzer asked me about gays in the military and I replied, “In good faith, my rivals and friends here on this stage and I have accepted your invitation to a Republican debate. Now that we’re here, Wolf, you’re wasting our time. Don’t do that.”
Ah, well. In reality, I am old enough to realize that such rhetorical indiscretion seldom pays, but it’s a pleasant fantasy. That’s why I am not a candidate, I guess.
Newt Gingrich was not at the debate, so I have nothing new to add about him today. About the other candidate who was not there, however, Fred Thompson, I do have something to add. Mr. Thompson’s recent quip has reached my wife’s ears: “When I was single, I chased a lot of women and a lot of women chased me. And those that chased me tended to catch me.” Admittedly, the same quip had reached my ears, too, and had made little impression on me. My wife however was instantly disgusted, who is not given to extreme reactions. Her views are of course more interesting to me than to you, but I wonder: is she the only married Republican woman who will feel that way? If you have (or are) a Republican wife, why don’t you ask her? You and I might learn something. My own wife asks, “What do we know about Fred Thompson? That he’s tall and has a deep voice? What has he accomplished, anyway?” Good questions. So far, I think that you can count me as not pro-Fred.
The floor is now open for your comments, pro-Fred or otherwise. If it interests you, here is the blog’s latest preference ranking of the Republican candidates.
- Tom Tancredo
- Duncan Hunter
- Mitt Romney
- Mike Huckabee
- Tommy Thompson
- Fred Thompson
- Newt Gingrich
- Ron Paul
- Sam Brownback
- Rudy Giuliani
- Jim Gilmore
- John McCain (tied, very regrettably, with Hillary Clinton, who is not mad)
HJH
June 7th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Fred’s statement was not one where he was proud of what he did, but an honest answer of his past behavior. Fred may not be a saint, but he seems to be pretty open and honest in his answers. Let him who hath committed no sin throw the first stone.
June 7th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Fred’s statement was not one where he was proud of what he did, but an honest answer of his past behavior. Fred may not be a saint, but he seems to be pretty open and honest in his answers. Let him who hath committed no sin throw the first stone.
I think that this is a good point. Permit me to second it. Personally I lack knowledge in the matter, but if what one reads is correct, Fred Thompson has divorced once only, amicably, maintaining cordial relations with his ex-wife to this day. A twenty-year interval separates his two marriages. Not all divorces are equal, of course. Mr. Thompson wins no points with me for his admitted behavior between his two marriages, but admitting it and putting the matter behind him was surely the right thing for him to do.
Though I prefer several others among the candidates, I like Mr. Thompson. I find it interesting that my wife does not. I share the latter fact with you, not because the fact is important to you in itself, but because it begs the question of how many other married Republican women might not react in the same way. (In twenty-six years of marriage, I have never yet voted against my wife’s strong objection. This is because I have learned to rely on her judgment of character and because, in my personal view, severe conjugal disunion at the ballot box just is not right. Whether I like Mr. Thompson or not, he would naturally have to improve his standing with my wife if he actually wanted my vote. I might have explained this better in the article above; thanks for the chance to correct.)
Thank you for the Fred Thompson campaign link. I shall add it to the article above now. Glad to hear from you any time. Keep this blog up to date, as you see fit, on how Mr. Thompson is doing.
Howard
June 10th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Howard,
I’ve commented here before and I am glad to see that you have returned from your hiatus and are posting again!
After you announced your hiatus, I decided to commence my own blog dedicated to economic nationalism, though I am a self-proclaimed New Deal liberal. I do think that both conservative and liberal economic nationalists can have a common cause: our #1 Enemy is *Globalism*. As long as the focal point is on this( and marginal social issues are shifted to the bottom of the pile), there are grounds for working together, in my judgment.
Keep up the good work and keep posting!
http://federalistleft.blogspot.com/
June 10th, 2007 at 9:58 am
The only one on the GOP contender list that I am even slightly warm to is Duncan Hunter for his anti-NAFTA stance. Hunter at least adresses the ‘why’ of illegal immigration;Tancredo is a simpleton. The big negative is that Hunter’s foreign policy is as militant as McCain’s. Hunter, though not proven to be corrupt himself, has been attached to some corrupt characters such as Randy “Duke” Cunningham. It is my contention that not a true economic-nationalist with an ‘enlightened nationalist’ foreign policy advocate is in the ranks of GOP White House contenders and it is a sorry lot to behold.
Frankly, I think that Republican economic-nationalists should aboard the ‘Lou Dobbs Democrats’ ship, this time around. Let’s face it: with the current existing trade-protectionist public officials, almost all have a ‘D’ next to their names. Republicans have just a few token mavericks like King and Hunter and they are laughed or ostacized by their Free Traitor colleagues in the GOP, and they dominate the consensus within. It is nice to be loyal to your party, but not when your party has not been loyal to you.
As Pat Buchanan eloquently narrated, the Republican Party at it’s birth was the Party of Trade/Tariff protectionism up until post WW2, as you know. This is no longer the case and I see no hope of it turning back to tradition anytime soon. GOP Rank & File Economic Nationalists should stage a revolt and turn Ronald Reagan’s famous quote backwards -
“I didn’t leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party left - me.”
Regards,
Mitch/Redoubt10